Gabriela is 5 times as old as Umaima and is also 24 years older than Umaima. How old is Gabriela?
Answer: We can use the given information to write down two equations that describe the ages of Gabriela and Umaima. Let Gabriela's current age be $g$ and Umaima's current age be $u$ $g = 5u$ $g = u + 24$ Now we have two independent equations, and we can solve for our two unknowns. One way to solve for $g$ is to solve the second equation for $u$ and substitute that value into the first equation. Solving our second equation for $u$ , we get: $u = g - 24$ . Substituting this into our first equation, we get the equation: $g = 5$ $(g - 24)$ which combines the information about $g$ from both of our original equations. Simplifying the right side of this equation, we get: $g = 5g - 120$ Solving for $g$ , we get: $4 g = 120$ $g = 30$.